Electron injection by a nanowire in the bubble regime

Abstract

The triggering of wave-breaking in a three-dimensional laser plasma wake (bubble) is investigated. The Coulomb potential from a nanowire is used to disturb the wake field to initialize the wave-breaking. The electron acceleration becomes more stable and the laser power needed for self-trapping is lowered. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations were performed. Electrons with a charge of about 100pC can be accelerated stably to energy about 170MeV with a laser energy of 460mJ. The first step towards tailoring the electron beam properties such as the energy, energy spread, and charge is discussed.

Shock-Front Injector for High-Quality Laser-Plasma Acceleration

“…Alternative approaches for injection aiming at both the stabilization and control of the process typically prevent self-injection by choosing a laser intensity and background plasma density below the self-injection threshold, while still driving a strongly nonlinear plasma wave [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. In the colliding pulse scheme, a beat wave between the main laser pulse driving the plasma wave and an additional, counterpropagating pulse heats some of the electrons at the collision point such that they gain enough momentum to be trapped [11][12][13].…”

Overloading effect of energetic electrons in the bubble regime of laser wakefield acceleration

“…Several methods have been proposed for increasing the energetic electron bunch quality, including using another laser pulse to control the injection, 7 tailored density gradient to control the injection as well as the acceleration, 8,9 and other approaches. 10,11 However, there are very few methods for increasing the number of injected electrons, which is essential for many practical applications, such as high-brightness radiation sources and radiography. 12,13 One method to obtain a large number of energetic electrons is to use a large laser focus size.…”

Ion acceleration and extreme light field generation based on ultra-short and ultra–intense lasers

“…This method had been theoretically proposed by Esarey et al previously [57] and did greatly increase the stability. People could also use density gradient, ionization or pre-set nanowires [58] to manipulate injection.…”